


Remember

by TheAsexualofSpades



Series: Quarantine Drabbles [129]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bonding, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Light Angst, Post-Episode: s05e13 The Diamond of the Day, Pre-Relationship, Prince Consort Leon (Merlin), Queen Gwen (Merlin), can be platonic or romantic you decide, they're getting there and listen it's not easy okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:13:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25611112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAsexualofSpades/pseuds/TheAsexualofSpades
Summary: Remembering can be painful. New suits of armor and fine dresses don't always sit right against your skin. When the kingdom loses its King, sometimes it's hard to cast aside an old role and step into a new one.Leon knows this. He wonders if Guinevere knows it too.
Relationships: Gwen & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Gwen & Leon (Merlin), Gwen/Leon (Merlin), Leon & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), past Gwen/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin) - Relationship
Series: Quarantine Drabbles [129]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1677655
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	Remember

**Author's Note:**

> there are so many questions i have afterwards and i just need to know

Fandom: Merlin (BBC)

Prompt: “May I give you a hug?”

* * *

“No!”

The Lady Saphirra reaches out and stills his hands on the fabric.

“Don’t pull it so tight, you’ll tear the fabric when you try and hem it.” She adjusts his grip until she’s satisfied. “There.”

“Thank you, my Lady,” Leon says, trying to finagle the damn needle to go into the fabric the way he wants it to.

“How many times to I have to tell you,” the Lady Saphirra huffs, “you can call me Kyrie, Leon. You don’t serve me.”

“For as long as I am in your home, to me, you are My Lady.”

“Then take your stitching outside, _Ser.”_

He bows his head obediently and makes to get up, only to receive a slap on his shoulder. The Lady — _Kyrie_ folds her arms, gloves still in hand. He sits back down. She nods in approval and turns away, ruffling his hair like a mother with her child.

“Just make sure you follow the grain this time.”

“Of course, Kyrie.”

She harrumphs and resumes weaving. Leon sees her give his work another glance out of the corner of his eye and nod. He’s been improving, which is why she can work now without supervising his every move. This is the fifth scarf he’s made in as many days that — so far — has received her approval. This one, made of a soft thin gauzy material that he can’t for the life of him remember the name of is for Allena’s mother, the flower gardener, to cover her head when the sun gets strong in the middle of the summers. He’s saved this one until he’s confident enough with a needle to avoid staining the fabric when he pricks his fingers. Push and pull, push and pull, move the fabric, _don’t pull it so tight,_ repeat.

He finishes hemming the scarf and holds it up, making sure he’s finished the entire piece. The sunlight filters through the fabric, casting a strange shadow on the wall.

“It looks good.”

He looks over to see Kyrie smiling at him from the loom.

“It looks good,” she repeats, “you’re getting so much better.”

“Thank you, Kyrie.”

“Not that I’m surprised…” she muses, returning to her loom.

“You are a very good teacher.”

“You are also a very good _learner._ ”

Leon shakes his head slowly, refocusing on the scarf. “I am old.”

“Yes, and you’ve managed to turn your skills in armor design into the ability to make these soft scarves.”

“…yes.”

It needs a fastening. He looks around for the scraps of fabric and twists a piece to make a firm loop. But where to put it?

He wraps the scarf around his head, trying to figure out where the best place to fasten the scarf would be. Not here, not there, what if…?

Oh. Oh, dear. He’s stuck. He doesn’t want to rip the scarf, he doesn’t want to ruin his work, but he can’t find a way out.

He hears a giggle and a snort. Dropping his hands with a sigh of resignation, he lets his shoulders slump and for hands much smaller and more dexterous than his unwind the scarf. Finally, he sees Kyrie stifling her laughs staring down at him.

“What were you trying to do?”

“Figure out where the fastening should go.” He holds up the loop.

“Why does it need a fastening?”

“Because sometimes it takes too long to wrap a scarf with no fastening in such a way where it will not come undone. It will be easier and more versatile with a fastening attached.”

“Then why not sew it into a headwrap?”

“Because it should still be able to be worn as a simple scarf, to be used in the springs and early falls when it is not so hot but the winds get stronger.”

Kyrie smiles at him. “You are a good learner.”

“You are a good teacher.”

“Yes, but you have a good heart. Which means that you want to make things to help people, and you want to learn things to do it.”

She hands him back the loop. “Hold the scarf loosely around your neck and attach the loop under your chin. I’ll get you the button. Would you like the copper or the jade?”

“Jade. It will match the flowers.”

Allena squeals when she sees the scarf. Her mother throws her arms around Leon in a grateful hug, seemingly not put off by his stiff return. She wraps it around her head and compliments the fabric choice, the placement of the fastening, and his goodwill. He nods politely and lets Allena tuck a flower behind his ear. Yes, he promises, the next time you and your friends return with a new batch of flowers, you may braid them into my hair.

He leaves with a flower behind his ear and a dirt smudge across his cheek where Allena kissed him.

It’s getting late; the sun paints red and pink stripes across a lazy blue sky. He walks across the courtyard back to the castle. The guards open the gates and he nods as he passes, heading towards the east of the castle where his quarters are. He rounds the corner and smiles.

“Good evening, my Queen.”

“Good evening.” She smiles at him. “How are you?”

“No complaints,” he demurs, only to frown when he notices how she’s holding her arms.

“Is there something wrong with your hands?” She has one folded inside the other’s sleeve. “I can escort you to the physician if you like.”

“No, no, I’m alright.” Guinevere glances down at her hands. “It’s just…”

She fidgets with her arms, drawing them closer to herself. Faint movements show through the fabric of her fingers running over her wrists. Ah. Memories and old practices formed from a crueler regime.

“Do they remind you of before?”

“Yes.”

He holds up his own hands, pulling back the sleeves of his tunic to reveal his fingerless gloves. Her pinched face loses some of its tension.

“You too?”

“Yes.”

The smile that graces her face is sad, even in its happiness. “At least we’re here now, right?”

Here. When the Queen wears the crown and the knight becomes the Prince Consort. There is a gaping hole left in both their hearts that cannot be filled, but they are luckier than most.

Pain has never cared how lucky one is, has it?

“Yes,” he agrees, reaching out and slowly running a hand over his wrists, feeling the worn imprints of his gauntlets. “But some of the marks never fade, no?”

“No.”

“They may, with time. It is all we can do, no?”

She smiles again, and it is much happier. “Good night, my friend.”

“Good night.”

He returns to his chambers, changing into his sleep clothes. As he removes his gloves, he runs his fingers over the worn calluses and faint scarring. His scars are from fighting, and so he prefers them swathed in soft fabric. Perhaps Queen Guinevere would prefer the same.

He knows the Queen is sometimes…sometimes, she prefers not to be a Queen. He knows she does not always have a servant to clean her chambers, and yet they stay clean nonetheless. He knows that her father’s forge is still run, even when there is only one person left alive with the keys. He knows that often she stands, looking at her finery the way he looks at his new armor. Like it doesn’t quite fit just right.

The next day, when he meets the La — _Kyrie,_ he asks about patterns for aprons.

“That’s new,” she says, turning towards the cabinet, “why an apron?”

He explains what he’s thinking about. As he does, her face loses its confusion and by the time he’s finished, she’s just about beaming with pride.

“Sir Leon, you’re a softie at heart, aren’t you?”

“Does…does that mean you will help me?”

“Of course, you silly man.”

They spend a great deal of time picking out the fabric; it needs to be sturdy enough to work as an apron, resilient enough to deal with the battering and staining that come with being worn for long stretches of time, yet soft enough that it can be used for comfort. Eventually, they settle on a compromise: a sturdy, cream fabric for the main body of the apron, and a softer, plushier fabric for the lining inside the pockets. Slim enough to not irritate anything she may have to put inside, but cozy enough to provide the reassurance necessary.

Halfway through cutting the fabric for the apron, Kyrie holds up a few of the longer scraps.

“Could we use these for something?”

Much later, when the sun is setting and his fingers are sore from many hours of sewing and resewing fabric, Leon walks to the servant’s hallway and pauses outside of Queen Guinevere’s door. Will she find it offensive? Will she think he is calling her a servant again? Will she hate it?

Or…or maybe not?

No use delaying any longer, eh?

Tucking the brown-paper wrapped parcel under one arm, he raised a hand and knocked three times on the door.

“One minute, please.”

Soft footsteps. Then the door opens.

“Oh. Good evening, Leon.”

“Good evening. Might I come in?”

“Of course. Pardon the mess.”

Leon huffs a laugh as he gazes around. The only thing ‘messy’ about Guinevere’s room is the dishes still set out from her dinner and the clothes draped over the ends of the chairs. He waits for her to close the door and walk around to stand in front of him.

“What did you need?”

He has to laugh at himself, just a little bit. Because he can debate military strategy with the councilmen for hours on end, can bark orders at troops in the middle of a battle, and negotiate diplomatically with leaders of state, but now, he cannot summon a single word. So instead, he holds out the package.

She takes it, gingerly settling it on the palms of her hands, paper crinkling slightly in the quiet room. “…what is this?”

“It is for you.”

“For me?” She sets it on the table. “May I open it?”

“Of course.”

With careful, practiced movements, she unties the knotted white string and begins unfolding the layers of paper. Over her shoulder, Leon sees the glimpses of the fabric begin to emerge. She reaches in and pulls out the apron, lifting it up and turning it over in her hands.

“I remember first coming here and looking at my scars,” he mutters, “and thinking about how they would not begin to heal until I had something else to associate with them. So I wore soft gloves, and used that to remember that my hands are mine.”

He gestures to the apron. “I, er, thought that this would be something you could use. I made it out of — “

“You made this?”

Immediately, his mind fills with justifications for the poor quality: he’s still learning, he’s just made it today, if she likes he can take it back and have Kyrie fix it. Then he realizes she’s smiling at him, eyes wide with…awe? Pride? A combination of both?

“…yes?”

She pushes the paper out of the way and lays it on the table, looking it over. His big, work-roughened, scarred hands clench in anxious fists as she feels the material.

“I, er, didn’t want it to be too much of a burden to carry around, so I tried to make it something you could use for your daily work and be comforting. The, er, may I?”

She nods eagerly and steps away from the table. Nervously, he picks the apron up from the table and holds it out. She lets him ramble about the stitching patterns and fabric choices for a while, then reaches for the ties to fasten it around her waist.

“You don’t have to wear it,” he says before she can say anything.

“Oh, I’m going to wear this all the time!”

“…you like it?”

“Oh, it’s incredible!”

She spins around, laughing delightedly at how the fabric falls around her dress. The pattern Kyrie picked is perfect.

Guinevere gasps.

“It has pockets!”

“Of course it has pockets,” Leon smiles in relief, “it’s an apron. The, er, lining is softer, so that you can, er, feel…better?”

There are two smaller pockets on the sides of her hips, where her hands can rest when she’s walking, and a larger one on the front where she can let her forearms rest if necessary, or to carry other things.

“ _Thank you,_ Leon,” Guinevere whispers, running her hands over the fabric, “I love it.”

“Do you?”

She nods like her head’s on a string at his crooked smile. “It’s perfect.”

Her hands go into the big pocket and her eyes widen. “What…”

She pulls out the things they made from the scraps of fabric.

“What are these?”

“Er, well, I was, er, worried that sometimes the apron wouldn’t be, er, appropriate, so I, er, made you something that can fit over the ends of your sleeves.”

With a trembling hand, he reaches for her forearm.

“Can I show you?”

She places her arm in the rough palm of his hand. She’s so small, her arm feels like a twig in his grasp. Delicately, he takes the one sleeve from her hands and slips it over her wrist, pulling the ties across the tops until they’re snug around the fabric of the dress.

“Is…is that too tight?”

“No, it’s…fine,” she murmurs, lifting her arm and turning it over, looking at the sleeve.

Watching her smooth the fabric over her arm, Leon laces and relaces his fingers, folding his hands over and over themselves. Does she like these? She didn’t have the same reaction she did to the apron. At least she likes the apron, right?

“Leon?”

Her call startles him out of his head.

“May I…may I hug you, please?”

“Of…of course.”

She has to stand on her tiptoes and he has to crouch down, but it’s the sweetest hug he’s received in a while.

“Thank you so much, for the apron, for the sleeves, for everything.”

“Of course, my Queen.” He hesitates. “I…know how hard it is sometimes, to remember.”

She squeezes him tighter. “Yes.”

The next day, he wears his gloves and runs a hand over the stitching. Soft. He catches sight of Guinevere in her new apron across the courtyard, talking to Kyrie. She waves.

He waves back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Come yell at me on tumblr while we're all in quarantine. 
> 
> https://a-small-batch-of-dragons.tumblr.com/


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